


Ebony and Ivories

by blacktail



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 01:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktail/pseuds/blacktail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spades Slick is convinced that a one-eyed one-armed mobster can’t play piano that makes grown men weep. You’re determined to convince him otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ebony and Ivories

You don’t even want to think about the hour. You’re nowhere near midnight or dawn, caught somewhere in between. It’s so late that the club is closed and even the Crew has gone to ground. You wanted it that way, but this wasn’t the scene you had in mind. Slick would be at the bar pounding them back with his one arm, teetering because he’d been going at it all night. You would say his name just to make sure you didn’t get the jump on him, hold his shoulders, and kiss his head. He would tell you to fuck off and you would engage in somewhat sloppy makeouts, followed by our best efforts to take his mind off of what was taken from him. That was what you expected.

What you got was Spades Slick sitting alone in the club’s main room. Not just alone, but alone on stage with a spotlight on him. Not just on him, but on his one-armed form slumped over the baby grand, single hand resting on the closed fall board, head down on the shiny black wood. You’ve seen him beat perfect, insane, impossible music out of that piano until she was ready to buckle. Now they’re both silent.

You’re drawn to him and before you have a plan you are walking across the dark stage, then into the spotlight. It isn’t until you’re a few feet from the bench that you see he isn’t sleeping, which makes it all so much worse. He doesn’t even look at you, just stares down at the fall.

“Hey, Slick,” you say gently. His eyes—eye, fuck, his _eye_ —slides over to you. It’s on your side, the same side where his shirt sleeve is tied into a knot much too close to his shoulder.

“Sleuth.” Your name comes out sounding like a dead body being dragged across gravel. You set your hat on the piano and wonder which side of the bench to sit on; the side where he can see you, or the side where you can’t possibly risk his injury. You take his pride into consideration and sit down on the side with the eye patch. Then, you set your hand over his. When you try to put your fingers together he drops his to the bench between the two of you.

“Are you working on something at this hour?” You already know the answer, but as a sleuth, it’s your job to ask leading questions that sound dumb.

“Can’t.” His head dips just a little more against the piano.

“You try?”

“Can’t do what I did anymore.”

You sling an arm around his thin shoulders and hesitate…no, it’s the right thing to do. You slide the fall back from the keys slowly and the two of you just look at them for a bit. If you rush this you’ll get punched in the face and he’ll slam the fall on your fingers. You need to do this _right._

 _Doing it right_ involves playing a dangerous game and purposely laying down two notes that clash terribly. You know more about music than you let on, because Slick’s the musician, and you’re just fine with that, so this is completely on purpose. You mutter a sheepish apology anyway and try again, this time almost getting a nice chord out of it, but not quite. Not quite, and Slick runs his hand through his sweaty, tousled hair in frustration. You set the full width of your hand on the keys and play whatever your fingers feel like, which comes out like a gradeschooler trying to play a beautiful song you know on guitar.

“Did I piss you off’r somethin?” the man next to you asks, low and intense.

You stammer, and your hand comes off the keys instantly. “What? No. What?”

“Because I didn’t think I did anything to you to s’bad as having to listen to _that._ ”

You grin at him. That was too close, but you just played Spades Slick like a finely-tuned instrument. That’s something you only ever do for his own good, because he doesn’t always know what that is.

“Sorry. You can probably play better than me one-eyed and one-handed.”

“Ain’t no ‘probably’ about it. Move the fuck over, you’re taking up my space.”

You scoot to the edge of the bench and make room for Slick, hiding your hands between your knees so that his ears don’t feel like they’re being threatened. You hold your breath and pray, because the man’s dark hand is on the bright keys, but he isn’t playing. His muscles twitch like they’re trying to remember, but his face gets all screwed up because…half of the song is missing. You can see how he got where he was when you walked in.

The next time you play a few notes they sound sweet and perfect, and his head whips around and one eye glares at you. You just try to smile at him as lovingly as you can, and look like you’re wondering if you screwed up some more. Then he plays the next few notes and before you can continue, he puts a hand up to stop you.

“We aren’t doing any of that duet shit. Just fucking watch, okay?”

“Okay,” you reply, and clasp your hands again. Slick explores a few notes with his long, pointy fingers. They turn into chords and his hand moves so fast, trying to get from one end of the keys to the other, like too few men playing a big field. He misses more than he hits, you can hear the gap in the sad tune, and mouth the words silently to yourself. ‘What have I become,’ and the song is hurting you at least as much as it’s hurting him, ‘and you could have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down….’

 _BRNNKNNGG._ He slams on the keys with one hand and stands up fast enough to knock you and the bench both over. His fingers come down like he’s engaging the piano in fisticuffs. _‘I wear this crown of thorns,’_ and the tempo is all wrong, faltering back and forth between too fast and too slow, _‘The feelings disappear, you are someone else, I am still right here.’_ It’s always a miracle the piano doesn’t break, beaten into kindling. _‘What have I become, my sweetest friend?’_ He’s taking it all the way through and he will not give up on this tune, no matter how many notes he misses, and you are still on the floor trying not to get pulled into that whirlwind and torn up.

 _‘I would find a way.’_

When the vibrations fall out of the air Slick is standing over the piano, hand holding his shoulder where a bloody flower is blooming in his tied-up sleeve.

You pull yourself off the floor and grab him. You don’t do anything with him in your hands, just keep him there until he looks at you.

“You’re such a fuckin’ pussy, Slueth,” he mutters, and when he eases his thumb over your damp cheek he nearly jabs you in the eye and succeeds in leaving a blood smear across your face.

“Guess so,” you say, and kiss him, tilting your head away from his bandage and holding him like he might break, until he grabs your head hard enough to pull hair out and busts your lip with his mouth. You can feel him smirking though, and random jarring notes erupt from the grand when he puts you down against it and takes the same assurance from you that he did from the piano: That he isn’t broken, that he’s still Spades Slick and is still on top of Midnight City…or at least on top of Midnight City’s best problem sleuth and one of its better pianos.


End file.
